US Secretary of State John Kerry sought to
calm Israeli worries over an emerging nuclear deal with Iran in an
interview aired Sunday, dismissing some concerns as brought on by
“hysteria” over the possible agreement.
Speaking
to Israel’s Channel 10 television, Kerry said the deal wouldn’t affect
American options to counter any possible effort by Iran to build atomic
weapons.
He also said he did not believe Israel would
surprise the United States by attacking Iran without prior consultation,
because of the “huge” potential implications.
“I say to every Israeli that today we have the
ability to stop [the Iranians] if they decided to move quickly to a
bomb. And I absolutely guarantee that in the future we will have the
ability to know what they are doing, so that we can still stop them if
they decided to move to a bomb,” Kerry said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has
been one of the harshest critics of the US-led framework deal with the
Islamic Republic, which offers it sanctions relief in exchange for
scaling back its contested nuclear program.
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Benjamin Netanyahu (L) meets with US Secretary of State John Kerry in
Rome on December 15, 2014 (photo credit: Amos Ben Gershom / GPO /
Flash90) |
Israel considers a nuclear-armed Iran an
existential threat, citing hostile Iranian rhetoric toward the Jewish
state, Iran’s missile capabilities and its support for terrorist groups.
In an apparent direct response to Kerry’s comments, Netanyahu said
Sunday that the emerging deal “endangers Israel, it endangers the
region, it endangers the world, the entire world in my opinion. So I
think it’s very important to insist on a better deal.”
Kerry was adamant, nonetheless, that the
criticism is misplaced, and that the deal emphatically benefits Israel.
“We will not sign a deal that does not close off Iran’s pathways to a
bomb and that doesn’t give us the confidence — to all of our experts, in
fact to global experts — that we will be able to know what Iran is
doing and prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon,” Kerry told
Channel 10.
The emerging deal “will in fact protect Israel,” he said, and he vowed that the US “will never disappoint Israel.”
Kerry made clear that the US maintained all its options, including the military option, to thwart Iran.
He did not directly rule out the possibility
of Israeli military action, but he said he did not believe Israel would
attack independently of the US. Asked whether he thought he might “wake
up one morning” to find that Israel had launched an offensive in Iran,
Kerry said: “Obviously, for the most part that’s hypothetical, until we
know what the circumstances are where that choice might or might not be
made.”
He went on: “I do not believe frankly that
Israel… that we’d wake up one morning and find that. I believe our
relationship with Israel is such that the prime minister would talk to
us at considerable length, because we would be deeply involved in what
would happen as an aftermath, and there are huge implications to that.”
Netanyahu believes the potential deal leaves
intact too much of Iran’s contested nuclear program, including research
facilities and advanced centrifuges capable of enriching uranium, a key
ingredient in building an atomic bomb.
“We will have inspectors in there every single
day; that is not a 10-year deal, that is forever,” Kerry countered.
“There is a lot of hysteria about this deal. People really need to look
at the facts, and they need to look at the science of what is behind
those facts.”
Kerry was robust and insistent in highlighting
the Obama administration’s support for Israel. “Every week we step up
to defend Israel in one forum or another in the world,” he said, citing
the UN, the ICC and other institutions. “We constantly are voting,
working, pushing in order to push back against unfair, biased, bigoted,
degrading, inappropriate assaults on Israel’s sovereignty, integrity,
and we stand up for it,” he said.
“In fact,” he went on, “we’re even being
kicked out of entities at the UN now because we stand up [for Israel].
And we have a law that says if the Palestinians do something, then we
would not pay our dues. Well guess what? Because of that we’re losing
our vote in UNESCO.” He said the US had asked Netanyahu “to give us a
waiver so that we can at least be able to defend Israel [at UNESCO].”
Kerry noted without elaboration that the
administration had “designed and deployed a weapon that has the ability
to deal with Iran’s nuclear program.” That, he said, was just one mark
of “an administration and a government and a country that will stand by
Israel way into the future.”
“No administration in American history has literally done as much,’ he said, “to try to help Israel in so many ways.”
President Barack Obama “wants a strong and normal relationship with the government and the prime minister,” he said.
He denied that Netanyahu’s speech to both
houses of Congress in early March had sparked a crisis in ties —
“I don’t think there is a crisis,” he said, though he acknowledged a
flare-up over the procedure by which that speech was arranged.
And he didn’t accept there was poor chemistry
between Netanyahu and Obama: “I don’t get into the chemistry,” he said.
“I’m not here to be psychologist or psychobabble-ist. My job as
secretary of state is to work with our allies and our friends. And
Israel is a great ally and a great friend.”
“I am confident that the relationship between
the president and the prime minster will be viewed… as one that is
operating on all the critical issues,” Kerry said.
Channel 2 reported Sunday that Netanyahu told
Kerry to hold off on a visit to Israel earlier this year until after a
coalition is formed.
